The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands eBook

“By the way,” Bud remarked, as they were
about to leave the cabin, “would you mind telling
us the handle of your name? We know your father’s
surname, but we’d like to know how to address
you. You’re too young for us to call you
Mr. Howard.”

“You c’n call me Bill, if you want to,”
the slingshot victim replied.

Hal was particularly impressed with a sly, cunning
look in the eyes of the prisoner and told himself
that the fellow would bear watching to keep him out
of mischief.

“I tell you what I’d like to do,”
he said to his two friends as they reached the deck.
“I’d like to hide in the closet in the
cabin and watch that fellow. I bet he’d
do something that would help us break his mysterious
silence.”

“You could steal down into that little alcove
near the entrance of the cabin and watch him there
through the crack in the door,” Bud suggested.

“That’s second best choice,” said
Hal, “I think I’ll make use of it at once.”

Accordingly he descended the companionway with the
greatest caution and succeeded in ensconcing himself
in the position suggested by Bud. He had not
been there long when he was amply rewarded for his
diligence.

He could hear the prisoner moving about in the cabin
and a peep through the long narrow aperture along
the hinge side of the door acquainted him with the
object of the Canadian boy’s interest. The
latter, apparently, had just seated himself at the
table, and with phones to his ears, was in the act
of tuning the instrument.

Presently he appeared to be satisfied with this preliminary
and put his hand on the sending key. The fellow
seemed to be perfectly at home with the outfit.
Now the key was tapping and the spark was leaping across
the gap. The secret watcher leaned forward eagerly
to catch every sound. Yes, it came in genuine
enough dots and dashes, and he read them with ever
increasing astonishment.

First the operator repeated a Canadian call several
times. Then, apparently, the call was acknowledged,
and he sent the following message:

“I am prisoner on yacht, Catwhisker, in hands
of the fellows I tried to hold back, with radio, as
they were leaving Oswego, N.Y. They are determined
to solve mystery of your doings. Don’t bother
about me, but tell pa to clean out his place as soon
as possible and then let his prisoner go. They
have government officer with them on his trail and
will soon find his hiding place and raid it.”

“My goodness!” Hal breathed excitedly.
“Now I’m getting at the bottom of this
affair. That boy is the anonymous amateur who
pretended to have a radio wager with Hal’s cousin
and tried to make us think his Sos was a joke.”

CHAPTER XXIX

The End of the “Mystery”

Hal almost held his breath in his eagerness to maintain
perfect silence in order that he might “listen-in”
to this radio transmission until the sender had telegraphed
all that he had in mind to send.